The present invention relates to the combination of a land and water vehicle and more particularly to a conversion kit for converting a standard mini-bus type of land vehicle into one capable of travel on water.
In recent years there has been a great interest in recreational type vehicles such as trailer campers, motor homes and various combinations thereof including pick-up trucks with attached camper bodies. In addition there has been a large upsurge in boating as a recreational passtime. Many individuals and families prefer to enjoy both land recreation, in the form of travel and camping, and water recreation in the form of boating.
By combining a water and land recreational type vehicle, an individual interested in water recreation may drive to a water recreational site and directly use his vehicle as a boat. This would provide great flexibility since the need of returning to a launch site to pick up a car and trailer is eliminated. The sailor could enter where he pleases on the lake, river or other body of water, while maintaining freedom of exit consistent with the availability of roads and/or land navigable terrain. By eliminating the need for two vehicles, one land and one aquatic, the need for transfer of persons, equipment and consumables from each no longer presents a problem since no transfer occurs. Not only does this save effort and materials of construction, but it also provides more leisure time.
An individual who primarily prefers camping, visiting national parks and other land based recreation would have the added feature of the ability to travel on water without the need for taking a boat along.
In this regard a number of combination land and water vehicles are known. By way of example, prior art land/water vehicles are shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,362,373 to Mycroft, 3,421,472 to Oberg, 3,450,089 to Lippencott, 3,486,477 to Pender and 3,548,592 to Perrine. All of these patents are directed to various land/water vehicles and are distinguished from each other by structural differences including drive means and floatation features. All of these vehicles have one common feature of being a unique vehicle particularly made and designed for combined land and water use. While this is the stated purpose of such vehicles, their custom design is reflected in extremely high cost relative to the recreational budgets of most of the individuals who would be inclined to use such a vehicle.
The present invention overcomes the financial unavailability of water/land vehicles by providing a relatively inexpensive kit which can be used for conversion of existing mini-bus type vehicles into water/land vehicles.